Bump in the Night
by Kestrel1
Summary: The cons of and alternatives to a good night's sleep...


Disclaimer: The reference to Maximum Carnage has no place in the X-Men storyline, but I just had to devote a paragraph or two to my favorite mass murderers.  
  
Riots broke out all over the place. People destroying the neighborhood, people killing each other. And in the middle of it all were five supervillains the likes of which the world had never seen. They slaughtered people - mothers, fathers, children - at a staggering pace. Nothing could stop them. Doppleganger, Demogoblin, Carrion, Shriek and Carnage. Loose on the streets of New York City, they raised hell on earth wherever they went.  
Evan's eyes opened, he swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up before he was even fully awake. He hated that nightmare. He was just a little kid when all that stuff had happened. And even though he knew that the good guys won in the end, he'd never forget the destruction that was caused to his home town. His heart was beating fast and he was shaking a little, but he was still really tired. So he tried to go back to sleep. But a screeching noise coming from somewhere nearby kept him awake.  
Downstairs, Rogue was sitting by herself in the kitchen drinking some herbal tea. She hated the taste of it, but she remembered Ororo telling her that it was a good way to calm down. And after that nightmare she just had, she needed to calm down. It really bothered her that the people she had aborbed came out in her nightmares. Not that she had particularly cheery dreams herself.  
But sometimes she had really freaky ones, and something in the back of her mind told her that it was from when she absorbed Sabretooth. She took another sip of tea, but the muffled sound of gunshots that sounded like they were coming from right below her startled her and she wound up spilling most of it on herself.  
Kitty tossed and turned, having an unpleasant dream about that time Rogue had dragged her to see her favorite band in concert. Kitty still didn't forget that awful noise pollution that was supposed to be music. And all those crackheads that were hitting on them...they made Todd Tolensky look good. Her eyes popped open just as her dream got to the part with the mosh pit.  
She shook off the bad dream, took a drink of water from the glass on her dresser, and tried to go back to sleep. With a sigh, she turned over again and thought about Kurt. Most of the time she was in denial about it, but at night she sometimes admitted to herself that she had a crush on him. But what sounded like a not-too-far-away explosion almost surprised Kitty right out of bed and onto the floor.  
Scott had been having that falling dream again. Almost everyone had those kinds of dreams, but for some reason he felt that his were more real than anyone else's could be. He slowly woke up, then jolted to his senses when he realized someone else was in the room. He sat up in bed and slipped right into his glasses. It took him a minute to realize that Jean had put them on.  
"Did you hear that?" She whispered to him. "I guess not," he said, confused. On instinct he wondered what Jean was wearing, but he quickly thought about something else when he remembered she could read his mind. "Down boy," she laughed. Busted. "It sounded like an explosion," Jean continued. "Well if it didn't blow my door down, no way was it gonna wake me up," Scott replied with a yawn.  
Down the hall, Ororo had just snapped awake in a cold sweat. She had been having that dream where she was trapped in a box. Quickly regaining her composure, she opened her window and generated a gentle breeze. Being able to control the open skies, she had a natural dislike for being confined. And on a more logical note, she was extremely claustrophobic.  
She walked toward her door and listened. There was some kind of commotion in the hallway. Although her nightmare had just about jarred her wide awake, she became sleepy at the thought of going to see what the problem was. The children could keep themselves out of trouble, especially at 2 in the morning.  
At that very moment, Professor Charles Xavier mumbled something in his sleep. The world's greatest telepath was having a bad dream, and this was the cause of the rest of the X-Men's nightmares. Xavier could practically feel the hatred of Magneto inside him. He had hoped that his one-time friend wouldn't let it come to this, but deep down Charles knew that the war was coming. And it wouldn't be anywhere near as simple as good mutants versus bad. The human race would be a deciding factor in the struggle.  
In the entire mansion, the Professor was the last to wake up. It wasn't often that such worries overwhelmed him, and he was thankful for that fact. But as soon as he was awake, he sensed something was going on just outside. The X-Men were gathering in the hallway.  
"You heard those noises?"  
"Sure did."  
"Where do you think they're comin' from?"  
"Let's go check it out."  
Kitty, Jean, Scott and Evan met up with Rogue on the first floor and quietly made their way to the basement level of the institute. They briefly discussed their dreams on the walk to the Danger Room, but it wasn't a very hot topic. They finally got close enough to the training center to hear the same noises that they had heard upstairs.  
Entering the control room, they were amazed to see Logan and Kurt - Wolverine and Nightcrawler - battling against a heavy simulation as if it was the middle of the day instead of the middle of the night. It's just as well, Jean thought to herself, those two would have the worst nightmares of us all. When the exercise was over, the two exhausted mutants emerged from the room to find their angry teammates. "Don't you two, like, ever get tired?" Kitty asked, holding back a yawn to finish the sentence.  
Kurt himself let out a huge yawn, but grinned. "Sleep is overrated," he said simply before heading upstairs. 


End file.
